Fungi can be detrimental to many different facets of life. For example, fungi (e.g., mildew or mold) can negatively affect aesthetics or human living conditions, e.g., through degradation/deterioration of material, through contamination, by making material, e.g., wood, appear undesirable, or through production of undesirable toxins. By way of another example, fungi can be detrimental on fruits and vegetables, as entire harvests of a fruit or vegetable could be wiped out by the growth of a fungus, e.g., through contamination and/or production of undesirable toxins.
Many fungi respond to ethylene, often with spore germination being a fungal ethylene response mechanism. While some fungi are known to produce ethylene, many more fungi do not synthesize ethylene but can still respond to ethylene. Methods targeting the response to ethylene or production of ethylene in fungi could therefore be targeted to inhibit or reduce fungal growth.